Compact: United Club SFO Review

I feel like my benchmark for United Club’s tends to be pretty low, perhaps because of a few lounges where my experiences have been rather shocking i.e human zoo experience on the same level as the worst Delta SkyClubs.

These impressions have been formed over a handful of lounges such as ones in Denver ( I once literally went in for 2 minutes and out again ), Houston, Newark etc. So I continue to be impressed when there are others in the network where I would happily enjoy a few hours in.

I was in San Francisco for a few days and flew out with United ( just a domestic hop ) so had the chance to check out the lounge offering in SFO. With 3 different lounges to choose from, I just decided on the closest to my gates.

Location & Access

This United Club lounge is near Gate E4 in San Francisco International airport. There are also United Club lounges in gate areas F and G.

It is open daily 5:45 a.m. – 10:30 p.m

Eligibility of entry is as follows:

Class Of Service

• United Business (Polaris) Class
• United First To Canada
• Premium transcontinental flights ( LAX-New York Newark only )
• Star Alliance Carrier First Or Business Class

Star Alliance Gold Status

• Via United then must be flying same day international Star Alliance flight
• Via other Star carriers with same day Star Alliance carrier flight (note the difference here if you are Star Gold via another Carrier like Singapore/Turkish etc then you can access even if flying any domestic flight! )
• Both category above are permitted one guest as long as they are on same flight

United Club Membership

Customer with United Club membership including via MileagePlus Credit Card membership are eligible to use lounge with up-to 2 guests.

United Club one-time passes, can be used also.

Others Granted Access

• Active U.S military personnel with travelling family members
• Air Canada Maple Leaf™ Club membership
• Virgin Australia Velocity Frequent Flyer members that are Velocity Gold or above with same day international flight.

United Club SFO E Gates

There is a modern and inviting reception through the glass doors, where a couple of staff will welcome and check you through..

It feels like a recently renovated space with some nice props and soft lighting.

There is also another small staff counter immediately to your right as you enter. Not sure why they have this for such a small space, but I guess it helps separate the service tending to guests already inside as opposed to checking them in.

You then walk right into the main room which has a bar running along one whole end of it..

The seating are is well designed with generous sized leather seats with armchairs and a side table accessible to each seat with a lamp.

On the other end of this central room you have some high stool type seating, which seems a good area to work or even eat in.

There is then a second rectangular space running off from the end of the bar. I didn’t get around to taking pictures as there were a few guest facing right in that direction and felt it would be intrusive.

The area a few rows of 3 seats by the window. Then on the other end of this, you have a snack spread and refreshments station.

You have great views of aircrafts and taxi-way movements you can track from here..

United Club SFO Snacks & Refreshments

United is upfront about the services they offer in each of their Club lounges across the networks, and this is one of those that only offers “Light Snacks”. 

The spread of food was as follows:

While they are naturally a far cry from the famous Noodle Bars of a Cathay Lounge you have a selection of decent ingredients to make up your own style of noodles for the base..

Then you have the a choice of 2 broths to complete your dish.

There was also a selection of choices to make a salad..

and finally you had some vegetarian wraps and chicken/beef sandwiches, crisps and cookies.

Perhaps it is managing expectations here but I found it very adequate for my lunchtime visit. The choices were not as broad as some of the bigger lounges like the LAX Club.

There was also the standard choices of sodas and tea and coffee available.

Full Service Bar

After a quick lunch, I decided to have a drink at the bar. It was quite a pleasant place to sit where you could chat with the friendly staff or just enjoy the views out with a drink.

I ordered a couple of Whiskey Sour..

I liked how they had quite a few signs on display to indicate California’s legal drinking age !

Overall Thoughts

I spent just under 2 hours at this United Club SFO and enjoyed my time there. For some reason I was expecting it to be really busy, but that wasn’t the case. This helped providing a great relaxing atmosphere. Not sure if this is because there are 3 other Club Lounges as well as a Polaris Lounge in SFO?

The space is well designed with lots of natural light coming through that is accented by good internal lighting and comfortable places to sit and just chill or work if that’s what you need to do. It is small but more than adequate.

Note there are no showers here like in bigger Clubs, which is understandable given the space available! If you are unsure which Club Lounges to use if you have several options, United lists the facilities on offer for each lounge here.